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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27717896">(they'll never break) the shape we take</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/teresavampa/pseuds/auroralynches'>auroralynches (teresavampa)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Supernatural</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Fix-It, Human!Cas Endgame, M/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 16:14:21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>9,036</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27717896</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/teresavampa/pseuds/auroralynches</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam was right, of course. It was different. The other times he’d lost Cas, it had hurt, but it was a clean hurt. His chest had ached and his stomach had curdled and his eyes had stung every time, but he could always make sense of it: the neat, Cas-shaped void in his life, full of feelings he could barely bring himself to put a name to and never planned to speak aloud, believing that they could never be returned.</p><p>This time, though, Cas had obliterated that familiar, uncomplicated grief. He had gone and introduced <em>hope</em> and <em>potential</em> into the equation, then taken them away, and now Dean felt their absence dig into his ribs every time he moved. There were jagged edges to this exit wound that kept it from healing right.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Castiel/Dean Winchester, background Sam Winchester/Eileen Leahy - Relationship</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>231</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>(they'll never break) the shape we take</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Here's the thing: I've had to rewrite these author's notes like 3 goddamn times since I started working on this fic on Friday because so much shit has happened since then. So some context is needed:<br/>-I watched SPN for less than a year, and that year was 2013. I started following the show synopses/fandom again after 15x18 (aka the Bury Your Gays Heard Round The World), but haven't actually watched any episodes.<br/>-The finale made me so mad that I decided to write fix-it fic about what I thought should have happened in the finale based on Tumblr speculation. (If you recognize a Tumblr post in here, please link it in the comments so I can credit it! I've read so many SPN Tumblr posts this month that I can't remember what parts of this fic were my idea anymore.)<br/>-I tried to check as much of this against the SPN wiki as I could, but I'm sure there will be some inaccuracies in lore/continuity/characterization. Sorry about that!<br/>-I finished writing the first draft of this mere hours before the Spanish dub came in with the steel chair, so this reflects the English version of 15x18 (i.e., Dean didn't say it back).</p><p>Title is from “Slip Away” by Perfume Genius, which, much like Supernatural could have been if the execs at the CW had possessed even a solitary brain cell, is about how queer love is its own form of godliness that can be more holy and powerful than any distant, hateful capital-G God or bigotry in His name.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>It wasn’t until the last vampire had crumpled into a headless heap that Dean actually noticed the barn.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’d been so consumed with not getting killed by those juggalo freaks that he hadn’t registered the stairs leading up to the hayloft, the posts holding up the ceiling on one side, the tall door with its angled braces. It looked just like the barn where Anna—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A wave of nausea hit him as he tried to finish the thought. He stumbled weakly to the stairs and sat heavily on the second step, his head sinking onto his knees as he tried to steady his ragged breathing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>From across the room, he heard Sam call his name, alarmed. “Dean?” he repeated, his footsteps crunching softly on the scattered hay as he came closer. “You okay?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dean let out a sharp, forceful breath through his nose and looked up. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m good, Sammy,” he managed. Sam sat down beside him on the step, looking unconvinced. Dean added, “This place just reminds me of… remember Anna? How she got her grace back and went all Ark of the Covenant?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah?” Sam said, clearly unsure of the point Dean was trying to make.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dean hunched his shoulders. “This just looks a lot like that barn, is all,” he mumbled, glancing around the space again, looking anywhere but at Sam’s face. Jesus, it could <em>be  </em> the same barn. That had been Ohio, hadn’t it? It was so hard to keep track after they’d crawled over damn near every inch of this country.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sam was still just looking at him in the way that Dean hated—the <em>thoughtful</em> way, like he was analyzing him. Whenever Sam looked at him like that, it always meant he was figuring out some shit that Dean had thought he’d buried too deep for anyone to find, and he could never figure out what gave it away.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sure enough, in a careful, measured voice that made Dean want to scream, Sam observed, “That wasn’t too long after we met Cas.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dammit. Dean supposed it wouldn’t have taken a genius to connect the dots, really. Nowadays, though, there was a weight to how Sam said Cas’ name that made Dean uneasy. While he’d never directly asked about the circumstances of Cas’ death, he seemed to sense that Dean was hiding something.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>I love you. Goodbye, Dean.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Dean closed his eyes, but the memory replayed itself, now tumbled together with an older one: that night in the barn, when Anna had kissed him goodbye before taking her grace back. When he’d pulled away, Dean had looked to Castiel and seen, just for a flash, a look of raw, unbridled jealousy on the angel’s face. At the time, he’d wondered if Anna and Cas had had a thing going in Heaven; later, as he’d gotten to know Cas better, he’d decided that he’d misread the expression.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Now, he wondered if it was the first in a long series of signs that, in retrospect, should have been obvious. </span>
  <em>
    <span>I love you. Goodbye, Dean. I love you</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Anna’s lips against his</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>I love</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>a furrowed and furious brow</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>you I love</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Cas’—Jimmy’s—<em>Cas’</em> clean-shaven jaw clenched in a way that Dean would replay and dissect a hundred times in the years to come</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>you</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>undisguised </span>
  <em>
    <span>want</span>
  </em>
  <span> in Cas’ eyes before he probably even knew what that was</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>I love you. Goodbye, Dean.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Realizing that Sam was probably expecting a response, Dean managed a hoarse, “Yeah.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You know, it’s okay to miss him,” Sam said, far too gently for Dean’s liking.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>I love you.</span>
  </em>
  <span> Dean clenched his jaw for a beat, two, three, before pushing through to another subject. “What are we doing here, man?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sam’s eyes narrowed at the deflection, but he didn’t object. “What do you mean?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We’re in a barn just like one we were in twelve years ago, hunting a vampire we hunted fifteen years ago from a nest Dad hunted twenty years before that. All that effort to defeat Chuck and get our free will, and we’re just gonna spend it replaying the hits?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So, what, you’re saying you want to quit hunting?” Sam asked.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I dunno. Maybe.” Sam stared at him. Somewhat defensively, Dean added, “I’m just being realistic. I mean, dude, I’m forty—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Forty-one, actually.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Shove it,” Dean said without heat. “My point is, we can’t keep doing this forever. We’re only gonna keep getting older and slower until eventually some ghoul or cryptid or the goddamn Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man takes us out—for good this time, since Jack is doing the whole hands-off thing.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dean thought he had made a pretty good point, which meant he was all the more surprised when Sam pushed back. With a deepening frown, Sam said, “The hell’s gotten into you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Startled, Dean asked, “What, you think we shouldn’t retire?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, I think it’s a great idea,” Sam replied. “But I never thought </span>
  <em>
    <span>you</span>
  </em>
  <span> would be the one to suggest it. I always thought I’d have to get some sort of intervention counselor to help, like the people who help you talk your friends into going to rehab or get old people to agree to move into nursing homes.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, I don’t think they have those for hunters, though,” Dean said drily.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sam ignored him. “So what’s changed?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dean fought the urge to squirm uncomfortably as he answered, hyper-aware of how close he was skirting to certain major <em>I-love-you</em>-shaped truths he didn’t know how to handle. “I’ve been thinking about it for a while, honestly. Like, years. Especially since we met up with Garth and his wife. I figured it might be nice to hang up the holy water, open up a bar or something, maybe even get the Roadhouse back up and running. But as long as Chuck was writing the story, I figured it didn’t matter, ‘cause he’d never let us retire, right? Except…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Except Chuck’s not in charge anymore,” Sam finished.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Right. And then there’s…” Dean trailed off for a moment before forcing himself to continue. “And then there’s this thing Cas said to me just before he died. He said—” <em>he loved me</em> “—that I was more than just a killer. And so back there when I realized we’d done all of this before, I was thinking—man, if he was right, then what the hell am I doing spending my shiny new free will on the same crap Chuck made me do?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sam nodded slowly, processing. “I know what you mean,” he said at last. “Eileen and I once talked about retiring and working together to build the Men of Letters back up. Get rid of the weird secret society shit and make it into a… I don’t know, hunter training organization? International research library for the supernatural? Something that could really help the forces of good after we’re gone.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“A legacy.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You think you’re actually gonna do it?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sam huffed a small, humorless laugh. “Dunno. I haven’t brought it up with Eileen again. Barely even talked to her since Jack brought her back, actually.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What? <em>Sam</em>,” Dean admonished.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I checked in with her! I made sure she was okay!” Sam said defensively. “I’ve just been a little preoccupied the last few days because, well…” He trailed off, looking as though he regretted starting that sentence.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dean felt his expression hardening. When Sam cut himself off mid-thought like that, it was invariably because he was about to say something he knew would piss Dean off. “Well, what?” he demanded.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sam made a face like he was bracing for a fight. “Well, because I was worried about you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dean blinked. “You were </span>
  <em>
    <span>worried</span>
  </em>
  <span> about me?” he repeated. He told himself that he was irritated at the thought of Sam pitying him, although he knew the truth had more to do with fear than anger. “Sam, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’ve been doing fine.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Have you?” Sam retorted. “ ‘Cause from my perspective, you’ve been all over the place since Cas died.” Dean flinched, but Sam pushed on, undaunted. “One day I find you passed out drunk and barely able to function, the next you’re pretending like nothing’s wrong. You adopted a dog after telling me for years that we couldn’t get one; you fell for that fake phone call from Lucifer, which is maybe the oldest trick in the monster-hunting book; you haven’t even told me anything about how Cas died except that he summoned the Empty to kill Billie—without saying </span>
  <em>
    <span>how</span>
  </em>
  <span> he did that, by the way—and that he told you you weren’t a killer. So, yeah, I was worried about you. I still am, matter of fact.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, well, grief affects people in funny ways,” Dean said acidically. He rose to his feet, hoping that would signal an end to the conversation.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Unfortunately, Sam was used to his tricks. He stood as well, grabbing Dean by the upper arm before he could walk away. “I’ve seen you grieve, Dean,” he said, earnest and solemn. “Hell, I’ve seen you grieve </span>
  <em>
    <span>Cas</span>
  </em>
  <span> more than once. This is different.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dean ripped his arm free with an annoyed glare, but he didn’t move. He just waited, jaw clenched.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sam was right, of course. It was different. The other times he’d lost Cas, it had hurt, but it was a clean hurt. His chest had ached and his stomach had curdled and his eyes had stung every time, but he could always make sense of it: the neat, Cas-shaped void in his life, full of feelings he could barely bring himself to put a name to and never planned to speak aloud, believing that they could never be returned.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>This time, though, Cas had obliterated that familiar, uncomplicated grief. He had gone and introduced </span>
  <em>
    <span>hope</span>
  </em>
  <span> and </span>
  <em>
    <span>potential</span>
  </em>
  <span> into the equation, then taken them away, and now Dean felt their absence dig into his ribs every time he moved. There were jagged edges to this exit wound that kept it from healing right.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But he’d be damned if he was going to admit it. He’d only gotten this far in life by shoving down everything he didn’t want to talk about and cloistering it in some dark corner of his mind where he could pretend not to notice it. Hiding this part of himself from Sam, from everyone, had been second nature since he was nineteen and realized that the shudder he felt when a guy had hit on him at a bar in Omaha was one of interest rather than disgust. Ignoring grief had been second nature even longer—fifteen years longer, to be precise. The thought of talking about any of it felt like being asked to open a door that could never be closed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sam asked anyway.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Did he tell you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dean felt himself go cold. He was struck by the feeling that he’d just lost a game he didn’t know he was playing until that moment. Still, he made an effort to defend himself. “Tell me what?” Even as he spoke, he could hear how obvious the lie was, his own voice sounding flat and alien to his ears.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sam didn’t even pretend to buy it. “I have eyes, you know. I saw the way he looked at you. To be honest, I figured out a long time ago that he was… well, that he was in love with you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>At the words <em>in love with you</em>, Dean staggered. So the jig was well and truly up, then. He screwed his eyes shut, steeling himself. He kept them closed even as he finally forced himself to speak. “Yeah. Yeah, he said it.” He opened his eyes, but avoided looking at Sam, preferring instead to stare blankly at the far wall of the barn. A distant, detached part of him noted that one of the planks was rotting. “When he saved Jack from the Empty, he made a deal that it could take him instead, but that it wouldn’t happen until the moment he—the moment he felt true happiness. So he told me. And it made him happy. And then he died for it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sam let out a long, shaky breath. What he said next made Dean realize that, despite how the conversation had started to feel like a series of blows to his vital organs, Sam had been treating him with kid gloves up to that point.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What about you?” Sam asked.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dean’s gaze snapped, startled, back to Sam’s face. He saw nothing there but warmth etched into every line of his brother’s expression, so deep and true it threatened to knock him off his feet. Sam added, “I mean, I won’t embarrass you with the whole I-love-you-no-matter-what speech if you don’t want, but… I saw the way you looked at him, too.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Twenty-two years of holding that door closed, and it turned out Sam had been looking in through the window. Dean almost wanted to laugh, except that he didn’t trust himself not to cry instead.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When it became apparent that Sam was happy to stand there in silence forever if that was what it took, Dean relented. “What do you want me to say, Sammy?” he whispered. “ ‘Cause it sounds like you already know the answer, and it’s not like I can do anything about it now that he’s gone.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sam’s reply was significantly less gentle than Dean had been anticipating. “Wait, ‘not like you can do anything about it?’ You mean you’re not even gonna </span>
  <em>
    <span>try</span>
  </em>
  <span> to bring Cas back?” He looked incredulous. “Dean, you told Chuck you’d </span>
  <em>
    <span>kill both of us</span>
  </em>
  <span> if it meant saving Cas, and now that Jack is God, you’re telling me you’ve given up?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dean gave him an incredulous look right back. “I’m sorry, does the phrase ‘hands-off’ mean nothing to you? Jack doesn’t want to interfere the way Chuck did. Pulling Cas out of the Empty would be the </span>
  <em>
    <span>definition</span>
  </em>
  <span> of interference. He’s not gonna do it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Have you asked?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Whatever program in Dean’s brain had been running despair.exe for the past few days abruptly froze and popped up an error message.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Have you asked Jack to bring back Cas?” Sam repeated.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dean stared at him, his brain and his heart working furiously in competing directions. He wasn’t sure if he was angry or hopeful or just embarrassed that such a stupidly obvious idea hadn’t occurred to him. “No,” he admitted.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Then how do you know he won’t?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dean said nothing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You can do it here,” Sam offered. “I’ll wait by the car, give you some privacy.” With that, he stepped away, leaving Dean standing alone in the middle of the barn.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Faced with the prospect of actually praying to Jack, Dean felt strangely awkward. He tried clasping his hands, but that felt too formal, like he was some little kid kneeling by his bed. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Now I lay me down to sleep…</span>
  </em>
  <span> In the end, he simply stood there, arms hanging by his sides and eyes closed, and tried to let the words come out.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hey, Jack,” he said conversationally, as though this were just another chat in the bunker. “We, uh, we really miss you down here, kid.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Unexpectedly, he felt a warm presence surround him. He imagined it as a cone of golden light shining on him from above, but when he opened his eyes, the inside of the barn looked the same as ever. Closing his eyes again, he continued, “I guess that means you’re listening. Well, if you are, then you probably know what I’m gonna ask from you, but… Cas. I need you to pull him out of the Empty again. I need you to bring him back—” Mortifyingly, his voice broke. He cleared his throat and forced himself to continue: “—bring him back to me. <em>Please.</em>”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There was no response. After a moment, the presence faded. Dean felt some shred of hope he hadn’t consciously acknowledged start to collapse in upon itself, leaving behind a yawning pit in its wake. That was it, then. Last possible avenue exhausted. Gritting his teeth against the sob that threatened to claw its way up his throat, Dean opened his eyes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jack was standing in front of him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dean said stupidly, “Jack.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jack grinned at him. “Dean.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dean stared at him, uncomprehending. “This doesn’t seem very hands-off,” he managed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s not,” Jack agreed. “But it makes it a lot easier to talk to you. I’ve been waiting for you to ask me for this.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You…” Dean still felt like he was playing catch-up on a conversation he’d initiated. “You’ve been waiting for me to ask you to bring Cas back?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jack tilted his head thoughtfully. “Mm… maybe not <em>waiting</em>, actually. <em>Hoping</em> would be more accurate.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Because I want him back too, and I can’t bring him back.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>If possible, Dean’s heart sank even lower than it had before. “You can’t,” he repeated hollowly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jack smiled. “Dean, you misunderstand me,” he said. “I’m not going to just hand you what you want, because that would be hands-on. Direct interference. So no, </span>
  <em>
    <span>I</span>
  </em>
  <span> can’t bring him back. But </span>
  <em>
    <span>you</span>
  </em>
  <span> can.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He vanished. There was no special effect, no </span>
  <em>
    <span>whoosh</span>
  </em>
  <span> of air signifying his disappearance. He was simply there one second and gone the next. In his place hung an inky portal just taller than he was, its edges swirling with flashes of ultraviolet. Dean realized instantly what Jack had done. It was a doorway to the Empty.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sam!” he shouted, not taking his eyes off the doorway. “Sammy!” There was no response. Dean wanted to run out of the barn to get him, but he was afraid that if he did, the portal would vanish. He shouted Sam’s name one last time.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>He can’t hear you</span></em>, he heard Jack’s voice say. It was almost too indistinct to make out, like a whisper from a hundred feet away. 
  <em>
    <span>The power of the Empty is cutting you off from the world outside. It won’t allow you to bring him with you.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Dean hesitated for just a moment.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In the end, it wasn’t much of a choice.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He stepped through the doorway.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>At first, he thought that it was dark. In his past experience, when he couldn’t see where a space began or ended, couldn’t even see the terrain in front of him, it was because it was dark.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then he looked down and realized he could see himself as clearly as if he were still in the barn. Exactly as clearly, in fact—the lighting on his clothes was patterned with the same streaky shadows cast by the barn’s uneven wooden walls. That was when understanding hit him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Empty was aptly named. It was not simply a dark chamber in the way of Heaven or Hell. It was pure absence, the void surrounding all creation. He couldn’t see the floor because there </span>
  <em>
    <span>wasn’t</span>
  </em>
  <span> any floor.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dean took a long, steadying breath and tried not to wonder what he was drawing into his lungs in the absence of air. He took a step forward on the absence-of-floor, then another.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He had only walked a few steps when the nothing became something. The black emptiness in front of him rippled with the same oil-slick shine that had enveloped Cas, forming itself into the shape of a familiar woman lounging on a low stone wall that stretched into infinity in either direction.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sorry, Dean,” Meg said. “The buck stops here. No humans allowed in the Empty. I don’t care if the new kid snuck you in.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dean traced her slowly with his eyes, taking in every detail. Her hair was blond, just as it had been the last time he’d seen her. Same leather jacket she’d always worn. Same wickedly flirtatious grin. “Meg?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Meg looked herself up and down, as though reminding herself of what she looked like. “Oh, yeah, that was what you called her, wasn’t it?” Meg—or the thing wearing Meg’s face—shrugged. “Unfortunately, the real deal is asleep in here, never to wake up. I like using her form, though. She got pretty attached to this vessel by the end. When she dreams about her past, she sees herself looking like this, even when it’s not true. Not unlike your boyfriend, actually.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The thing grinned again, wider this time, to see Dean startled by its pronouncement. “Oh, yes, I know who you’re here for, Dean Winchester. Unfortunately, you’re out of luck. Castiel is already fast asleep, dreaming away. He’s run out of chances to escape me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>To escape—oh. “You’re… it, then?” Dean asked, making a little circle with his finger to indicate <em>all of this</em>. “You’re the Empty?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Not-Meg’s grin widened even more, pushing the limits of what the vessel’s human face could have actually contained in life. Dean imagined muscles tearing and sinews snapping like telephone wires in a hurricane. “You can call me that,” it said agreeably. “Or the Shadow. It’s the same story either way: I speak for this place, and I’m telling you Castiel isn’t allowed out, and you’re not allowed in.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Shadow waved its hand, and Dean could feel himself start to be pulled back to Earth. In desperation, he called out, “What if we made a deal?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The pulling sensation abated. “You have nothing of interest to me,” said the Shadow, but Dean could tell it was curious.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You sure about that?” Dean said, doing his best to project confidence. In his head, he rifled frantically through everything Cas or Sam had told him about the Empty. There was something they’d both said… “If you let me in,” he offered, “I’ll make sure you can sleep forever. No one will ever bother you again.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And how do you plan to do that?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“For a start,” Dean said, “Cas, Sam, and I will stop bothering you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Shadow seemed amused at that. “It’s true that your little crew is the first to ever wake me in my billions of years of slumber. Now that you’ve gone and overthrown God and the Darkness, I’d hoped that I’d be done getting pulled into your petty squabbles. Given that you’re still here, I guess I was wrong about that.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dean felt his heart start to beat faster as he realized this really might work. “Guess you were.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Shadow trailed its eyes over him one last time, evaluating, calculating. “Alright,” it said at last. “</span>
  <em>
    <span>If</span>
  </em>
  <span> you can get through to Castiel, and </span>
  <em>
    <span>if</span>
  </em>
  <span> you can wake him up, and </span>
  <em>
    <span>if</span>
  </em>
  <span> you can convince him to go with you—yes, you can have him. I give you my blessing.” It smirked at its own joke. Dean shivered involuntarily at the thought that this </span>
  <em>
    <span>thing</span>
  </em>
  <span> knew about the complicated history between him, Cas, and Meg.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then something else it had said caught his attention. “Wait, what do you mean <em>if</em>—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He never got a chance to finish the question as the scene shifted around him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He found himself standing in a wheat field, tall golden stalks rippling like an ocean as far as the eye could see. He could somehow tell that he hadn’t left the Empty; there was a sense that what he was seeing was only a thin screen thrown over his eyes, with the void lurking just behind it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Movement in the distance caught his eye. Dean stepped forward and found himself standing right beside the disturbed wheat, as though he had traveled a mile in a single step. Before he had time to register how bizarre that prospect was, the source of the movement became apparent.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A man with curly black hair and sun-darkened skin walked through the field, supporting himself on a gnarled walking stick. Behind him walked a teenage boy. Both of their faces were taut, like they had been crying, and the man’s hands were stained with blood.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do you see?” said a voice. Dean whipped his head around, but saw no one else. The pair in front of him didn’t react, as though they hadn’t heard anything. “Do you see the arc of God’s wisdom, little brother?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But Raphael—” </span>
  <em>
    <span>Cas.</span>
  </em>
  <span> Hearing his voice again, Dean had to fight so hard not to weep that he nearly missed the rest of the sentence. “—was the test really necessary? Why did God have to push Abraham and Isaac to the brink just to be assured of their faith?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s dangerous talk, Castiel,” Raphael warned, an edge creeping into his voice. Through Cas’ memory—because that’s what this was, Dean realized now, a memory—Dean could feel the terror that shot through Castiel at the thought of being labeled insubordinate. “Our Father’s design is infallible. To presume yourself worthy of questioning it is to follow the path of our <em>brother</em>.” The word </span>
  <em>
    <span>brother</span>
  </em>
  <span> was spat with such hatred that Dean flinched as though dodging an attack.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Castiel said nothing more. Dean stood and watched Abraham and Isaac’s backs recede, walking home from Moriah. He knew, somehow, that in reality this infinite wheat field had only been a small farm in the saddle of the mountains, but it didn’t matter. In this memory, the important part was what came after the mountain. Dean could feel Castiel thinking about the tear tracks carved in the dust on the humans’ cheeks, left there by his Father’s infallible wisdom.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>At long last, Dean remembered what he was doing here. “Cas!” he shouted at the illusory blue sky. “Cas, can you hear me? Wake up, man!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The world shimmered. For a moment, Dean thought—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But the scene merely changed to a new memory. In the place of Abraham and Isaac there now stood a cluster of angels surrounded by greenery. Dean managed to recognize one of them as Ishim before his attention was caught by the angel standing closest to him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was like he was viewing two separate realities simultaneously. In one reality, the angel took the form of a tall woman with dark hair piled atop her head. In another, it was Cas, looking the way Dean had always known him, with a trench coat and rumpled blue tie that looked entirely out of place among the long frocks and high-necked shirts worn by the rest of the group. The two images didn’t flicker between one another; they simply coexisted and were equally true, and they didn’t particularly care if Dean’s human brain could handle that or not.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Cas!” he called again. The Castiels in front of him didn’t respond, but Dean thought he saw their twin sets of eyes flick over to him briefly. Encouraged, he stepped forward and laid a hand on Cas’ arm, ignoring the brain-melting sensation of feeling like he was simultaneously grabbing a broad bicep under nylon and a delicate shoulder under wool. “Cas, it’s me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In a doubled voice, the two Castiels growled, “Stop.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The word pierced Dean like an arrow. For a moment, all he could do was stand there with the wind knocked out of him. Then he swallowed his hurt and remembered that the Empty wouldn’t have led him straight to Cas if retrieving him would be so easy. “Yeah? Nice to see you, too,” he quipped.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But I’m not.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Uh…” Dean ran back the tape in his head, trying to see if he’d missed something. “Come again?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m not seeing you,” the Castiels clarified. None of the other angels in the scene were moving or talking anymore, but the double Cas’ eyes were still trained on the one in the middle as if time would start moving again at any second and they needed to be ready. “This is a dream. A memory. You’re not really here.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes, I am. Cas, look at me.” Castiel ignored him. Dean tried to pull on Cas’ arms, to force the twin visions of Cas to look him in the face, but they wouldn’t budge. “Jesus, I’d forgotten what a stubborn ass you can be,” he complained.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Strangely, Dean thought he saw Cas’ lips quirk at that, but only on the male vessel. He took that as a good sign and tried again. “Cas, what do I have to do to convince you that it’s really me?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You can’t,” the Castiels said, but the male voice sounded less certain of itself than the female one.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You wanna bet? How about I start telling you all the things I know about you, huh? I know your vessel in the trench coat there was originally named Jimmy Novak—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dean lurched sideways as the memory changed. It was much more violent than the last transition: not a gentle ripple, but an abrupt 180 that left him feeling like he’d been yanked by a rope around his waist, turned upside down, and dumped onto the floor. He took a few seconds to steady himself before looking up to take in his surroundings.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jimmy Novak stood in front of him, his shirt sleeve rolled up to his elbow, forearm held above a pot of boiling water. He stared at Dean blankly. Dean stared back at him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Okay…” Dean said slowly. “Okay. So, I guess reminding you of memories makes you revisit them, right? Makes sense.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There was no response.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dean gestured at the man in front of him. “So is this… y’know, you? Or is it Jimmy?” he asked.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Although Jimmy’s-slash-Cas’ mouth moved like he was speaking normally, his voice seemed to come from the very molecules of air around them rather than his vocal cords. “I suppose it depends on how you look at it,” he said. “In the event that I’m remembering, this was Jimmy. But since this is just a replication produced by my mind, in a sense, everything in here is me, including Jimmy. Including you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dean sighed. “Still not convinced it’s me, huh?” He looked closer at the boiling water. A bubble burst and splattered onto Jimmy’s bare skin, but he didn’t react. He just kept staring at Dean with that alien-looking blankness on his face. Dean asked, “What’s going on here, anyway?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When Cas spoke, he sounded abashed. “I made Jimmy test his faith to prove that he was worthy of being used as a vessel. This moment we’re in now, the one just before he puts his hand in the water and removes it unharmed, was the last time the Novak family was whole.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But if you hadn’t used Jimmy as a vessel, we wouldn’t have met, and the Novaks all would have died in Armageddon. They’d be broken either way.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You can,” Cas said, “regret the hurt your actions caused and still think you did the right thing.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dean felt a dozen of his own such memories flicker through his mind, too quick to parse but all united by the same sentiment. “Yeah, don’t I know it,” he said. “But you don’t have to just sit here feeling sorry for yourself for eternity. I’m here to get you out, Cas. I’m gonna drag your sorry ass back to the land of the living and you’re—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He was cut off as the scene lurched again. When he’d righted himself, he instantly recognized what he saw. Cas—and it would just be Cas here, Jimmy was dead at this point, his soul ascended up to Heaven and his corpse wandering the Earth as the angelic equivalent of a favorite suit—stood in a ring of holy fire, gazing at a door that had just swung shut. Dean stood just outside the flaming barrier on a red Persian rug that had seen better days.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“This was…” Dean began, unsure how he wanted to finish the sentence.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“When you, Sam, and Bobby confronted me about working with Crowley,” Cas confirmed. “This memory is actually just a few seconds—the time in between you leaving and Crowley arriving to free me. I like to play it on a loop sometimes.” He nodded at the door, which twitched as it closed the last couple of inches over and over again. “The moment that door shut behind you, I started questioning my plan. It’s strange how much harder it is to justify our choices when we’re alone.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His words, although they were addressed to Dean, carried the unselfconscious frankness of a monologue. Cas evidently still believed he was just talking to a figment of his imagination. Dean wanted desperately to assure him once again that he was real, </span>
  <em>
    <span>this</span>
  </em>
  <span> was real, but a question came to his mind instead.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why this memory?” he asked. “What part of me telling you I’m here to pull you out of the Empty made you think of this?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cas turned his eyes, previously fixed on the door, towards Dean. Once again, Dean thought he could see the seed of doubt in Cas’ expression. Maybe the fact that he didn’t understand the connection was evidence that he really wasn’t the product of Castiel’s mind. “Don’t you remember what we said just before this moment?” Cas asked, his brow furrowing ever so slightly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dean only had to think for a second before the truth hit him like a gut punch. “I… I told you we could fix this,” he said weakly. “And you told me—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“—that it wasn’t broken,” Cas said.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dean stared in horror at Cas, who continued to look back with the same neutral, scrutinizing gaze he always used on Dean. “You don’t want to be saved,” he realized.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cas tilted his head as if to say </span>
  <em>
    <span>close enough.</span>
  </em>
  <span> “I don’t want whatever </span>
  <em>
    <span>this</span>
  </em>
  <span> is,” he said, gesturing at Dean. “I don’t want an imagined version of Dean offering to bring me back because he thinks it’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>right</span>
  </em>
  <span> or </span>
  <em>
    <span>just</span>
  </em>
  <span> or </span>
  <em>
    <span>what family does</span></em>. I’m at peace with my choice.”
</p><p>
  <span>“Dammit, Cas, <em>I’m not imaginary!</em>” Dean shouted. Cas looked startled, but before he could respond, Dean continued, “Why is it so damn hard for you to believe that I might really have come after you? Don’t you think that after twelve years of me failing to save you, you’ve earned the effort?
  <em>Don’t you think you deserve to be saved?</em>”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cas remained silent, but it was a more tender sort of silence than the other times he’d refused to respond to Dean. It was the type of silence that recognized that you were hurting and, instead of trying to patch that hurt with words, reached out a hand.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Please,” Dean pleaded, calmer now. “Please, Cas, I don’t know how to convince you I’m real.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>From the look on Cas’ face, he didn’t know either.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dean turned and thumped his fist gently against one of the wooden posts holding up the ceiling. Closing his eyes, he gave the post another soft thump. The small part of him that wasn’t consumed by the sense that he was somehow getting Cas back and losing him again at the same time noted that the wood had no texture under his skin. <em>Because Cas didn’t touch it</em>, he realized. <em>He doesn’t know how it felt, so it doesn’t feel like anything. He’s the only one with any power over these places in his memory.</em></span>
</p><p>
  <span>An idea occurred to him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You know what?” Dean said out loud. “I don’t think I </span>
  <em>
    <span>can</span>
  </em>
  <span> convince you.” He turned to face Cas again, who was now looking at him quizzically from across the line of fire. “But maybe you can convince yourself.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cas looked like he was wondering if Dean, and by extension himself, had finally snapped. “What do you mean?” he asked.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Summon up a memory of me. That time we were in that high school and I was pissed about my mom and about Jack and about how every shitty thing that had ever happened to me in my life was just Chuck’s idea of entertainment. I really, really wanted to just give up then and there. Why bother fighting if everything’s preordained and nothing is real, right? But you—you told me that Chuck may have planted the obstacles, but we ran our own race. That in all of this, there was still one thing that was real, and it was us. We were real, Cas, and we still are. Bring us back there, and we can listen to you say it as many times as it takes for you to believe yourself.” With that, Dean braced himself for the lurch into a new memory.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It never came.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dean frowned. “What’s going on?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He noticed Cas looking at him wide-eyed, his hard, cold face slowly thawing into an expression of wonderment. “I can’t summon that memory,” he said. “I’ve tried before, but I can’t. If I try to remember it, even distantly, it gets cut off. I certainly can’t recall it in as much detail as you just did.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Something inside Dean that had been dormant for a long time was starting to flutter. “Why not?” he asked, voice barely more than a whisper.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Because this place only lets you revisit your regrets,” Cas said dreamily, his eyes fixed on Dean’s face. “And I never regretted a moment that I spent with you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dean swallowed and let his lips curve into a watery smile.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s really you,” Cas said. He stepped over the ring of holy fire as easily as if it were a puddle, bringing himself face-to-face with Dean.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s me,” Dean confirmed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Dean…” Cas began to reach a hand up to Dean’s face, then stopped himself and withdrew. His expression shuttered. “How did you get here?” he asked suspiciously.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I didn’t do anything stupid, if that’s what you’re implying,” Dean said. Cas gave him a disbelieving look. Dean amended, “Stupider than normal, anyway. Basically, we beat Chuck, Jack became the new God, and he let me in here to try and rescue you. Now you just need to wake up, and we can get out of here.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dean waited expectantly, but Cas just stood there, the dream still solid around them. His face held the same bittersweet smile it had when the Empty had taken him. “I’m sorry, Dean,” he admitted. “But I meant what I said. I made my decision, and I’m at peace with it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>An icy feeling washed over Dean. “You can’t be serious,” he said numbly. “Cas, I—I </span>
  <em>
    <span>need</span>
  </em>
  <span> you, man. I can’t do this alone.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cas shook his head lovingly. “Yes, you can.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Swallowing hard, Dean said in a hoarse voice, “Yeah, well, I don’t want to.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What would you have me do, Dean?” Cas asked. “I come back to Earth with you, and… what? We sit around the bunker watching TV and drinking whiskey? You pretend nothing’s changed while I spend the rest of your days wanting and not having?”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Because the one thing I want… it’s something I know I can’t have.</span>
  </em>
  <span> Dean steeled himself and hoped against hope that he didn’t fuck this up. “Cas—” he began.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Dean,” Cas interrupted, clearly anticipating that Dean would try to hedge and weasel his way out of answering the question. “I know you mean well. I’m sorry that I can’t—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You can have it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cas blinked. “What?” he asked, so flat it almost would have been comical were it not for, well. Everything.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You can have it,” Dean repeated. “You can have me. Jesus, of course you can have me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cas’ expression was so guarded, like he was terrified to have hope. It broke Dean’s heart just to look at him. “Dean, what are you saying?” Cas asked, low and cautious.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I love you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was nothing like the passionate speech Cas had given him. It was simple, humble, even plain.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was perfect.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cas reached up to touch Dean’s face again, and this time he didn’t stop himself. His fingertips brushed lightly against Dean’s cheekbone; Dean leaned unconsciously into the touch until his whole cheek was cupped in Cas’ hand. “You…” Cas breathed, his eyes searching Dean’s face wonderingly, as if discovering a new constellation. “…How long?” he asked.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Since Purgatory, at least,” Dean admitted. “I spent a long time trying to ignore it ‘cause I thought you’d never feel the same way, but that’s when I figured it out. But I think in a way it started as soon as we met.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“When I gripped you tight and raised you from perdition,” Cas said, echoing himself from so many years ago. “Or when I laid a hand on you and was lost, depending on who you ask.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, well,” said Dean, “either way, it’s time for me to return the favor.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cas smiled at him and stroked a thumb over his cheekbone. His eyes shone in the flickering orange light. Dean brought both his hands up to cradle Cas’ face and smiled back. He leaned in until their foreheads touched and their eyes closed. Then he leaned in more.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The kiss was warm and soft and unlike any Dean had had in his life. There was stubble involved, for one: just a hint of sandpapery roughness at the edges of his lips, which Dean was quickly discovering that he </span>
  <em>
    <span>really</span>
  </em>
  <span> liked. For another, it was… well, it was <em>Cas</em>. There were no two ways about it. Dean had never before spent over a decade mutually obsessed with someone the way he and Cas had been, the way they endlessly saved each other and wounded each other and wanted each other. He knew it was an experience he’d never have with anyone else, not ever again. This was it for him. Cas was it for him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>As they kissed, Dean could feel the warmth from the fire at their feet start to fade. The dream was dissolving around them. Castiel was waking up.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When he finally withdrew and opened his eyes, he saw only Cas and the void.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You ready to blow this joint?” Dean asked.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cas began to smile at him, then paused. Frowning, he said, “Wait, there was something that Meg once told me made a good line when you’re being rescued…” He snapped his fingers idly, trying to recall it. “Oh! ‘You’re below average height for a Stormtrooper.’ ”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dean spluttered a laugh. He couldn’t even bring himself to make fun of Cas for butchering the line. “Alright, Princess Leia, let’s get out of here,” he said, turning and slinging his arm around Cas’ shoulders.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And there was the Shadow again, still in its Meg suit, once again blocking his way. It smirked, giving the pair of them a lingering once-over. “Not bad,” it purred. “Have to admit, I didn’t think you’d make it this far. But I can’t let you leave just yet. We had a deal, remember?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I told you,” Dean said, dropping his arm from Cas and stepping forward. “You let me get Cas out, and we don’t bother you anymore. Unless someone as annoying as us happens to come along again, which I doubt—” The Shadow looked like it was holding back a genuine laugh at that. “—you should have no problem getting back to sleep.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Shadow tilted its head, considering. “Mm… not a bad argument, truly. But,” it added, “not quite good enough. You didn’t just </span>
  <em>
    <span>offer</span>
  </em>
  <span> me sleep, you </span>
  <em>
    <span>promised</span>
  </em>
  <span> it. Banking on the behavior of others isn’t a promise, it’s a bet.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Well, fuck. When he’d spoken with the Empty before, he’d been so desperate to get to Cas that he’d just said whatever he thought might persuade it, not thinking of the consequences. Now it had come to collect, and he had no plan.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Oh, well. No turning back now. Dean decided to do what he did best: wing it. “How about this: you let us out of here, and we research a spell or, or ritual or whatever that’ll keep people from waking you up.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Shadow rolled its eyes. “Presuming the existence of a ‘spell or ritual or whatever’ that’ll neatly solve all your problems isn’t much better than just crossing your fingers and hoping,” it said, adopting a mocking impression of Dean’s voice as it quoted him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, what the hell else do you want me to do?!” Dean angrily demanded. “You can’t expect me to just know off the top of my head how to put a—a—primordial god into a coma!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It would have been easier if the Empty had gotten angry back, but it just raised Meg’s eyebrows like Dean was a toddler having a temper tantrum. “Can’t I?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dean gritted his teeth for a moment, then switched tacks. More calmly, he said, “Look, what good is it doing you to keep us here? Isn’t this just keeping you awake longer?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, it is,” the Empty agreed. “It’s excruciating, in fact. But you, Dean Winchester, seem to fundamentally misunderstand the nature of our little conversation here.” It swung its legs off the wall and leaned forward, its voice getting low and dangerous. “Don’t think of this as me keeping you from leaving. Think of this as me giving you a chance to prove yourself </span>
  <em>
    <span>worthy</span>
  </em>
  <span> of leaving when I could just as easily throw you out of here right now and put Castiel back to sleep for good. It’s not punishment. It’s mercy.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>At the mention of Cas’ name, Dean realized that the angel had been unusually quiet throughout the conversation. He turned to look at Cas and found him staring hard at the Empty with an expression that Dean knew meant he was deep in thought. “Cas?” he called, voice quiet so as not to disturb him too badly. “You got any ideas?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cas raised his head slowly, as though hearing Dean’s voice from underwater. “I… can put people to sleep,” he said.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dean frowned. Sure, he remembered seeing Cas drop people with a forehead touch more times than he could count, but he had a feeling the embodiment of the void before the universe began was a bit harder to take down than your run-of-the-mill human. “Not sure this is the same thing, bud,” he said, and immediately winced. The word </span>
  <em>
    <span>bud</span>
  </em>
  <span> tasted sour in his mouth now that he and Cas were… whatever they were.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Empty looked similarly unconvinced. “Your grace is weak, angel,” it said. “Damaged. Even if it were at full strength, it would take almost all of your power to put something as powerful as me to sleep. If you tried now, your grace would be utterly and permanently destroyed. Ripped from you. Gone.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes,” Cas said, raising his chin to meet the Empty’s gaze, his blue eyes steely and resolute. “I know.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>For what felt like the millionth time that day, Dean felt himself go cold with shock. He opened his mouth, but no sound came out.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Shadow, meanwhile, scoffed. “You can’t be serious.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I can,” said Cas. “As a matter of fact, I almost always am.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re telling me that you would give up your celestial birthright all for one human man?” the Empty asked, disbelieving.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cas’ gaze shifted to Dean, and the hardness of his expression melted away into pure warmth. “In a heartbeat,” he said, not taking his eyes off Dean’s. Dean gave him a soft smile in return.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Still, he couldn’t let Cas make this sacrifice on his behalf without at least trying to be unselfish, even though he wanted so badly to be selfish right now. “Cas,” he said, “are you sure? I mean, giving up your grace—that’s a big decision. There’s no turning back from that.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m sure,” Cas said promptly. Dean opened his mouth to push back, but Cas cut him off. “Dean, you said that you beat Chuck, right? We have free will now?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What’s the point of free will, if not to make big decisions?” Dean conceded the point with a dip of his head. Cas continued, “The version of me that’s existed up until now was always shaped by what Chuck wanted me to be. Even when I fought him, even when I defied him, he was still shaping me—placing the obstacles in my path. Now my story is in my own hands, and I get to choose how to start the next chapter. And I choose this.” He took Dean’s hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “I choose you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Empty’s eyes flickered between the two of them, a faint, sly smile on Meg’s face. It seemed to find the sincerity of their interaction entertaining—not in a meanspirited way, but in a way that suggested it wasn’t too displeased with Castiel’s plan after all. “You know,” it said, sounding warmly amused now, “by destroying your grace to put me back to sleep, you’ll become human. You won’t come back here the next time you die. I’ll lose what technically belongs to me—your soul.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What a shame,” Cas deadpanned. “For both of us.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Empty finally, truly laughed at that, head thrown back joyfully and eyes crinkled with mirth. For a moment, the sound even made Dean miss Meg. “Oh, Castiel,” it chuckled, shaking its head, “I will be so glad to be rid of you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t worry, I won’t stick around,” Cas said. He stepped forward and pressed two fingers to Meg’s forehead, the way he always did before putting someone to sleep. The Empty looked up at him and smiled as a white glow began to emanate from Cas: first his fingertips, then his eyes, and finally his whole body began to shine with a halo of light. The light grew brighter and brighter until Dean had no choice but to close his eyes against the nuclear detonation enveloping his field of vision.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When he opened his eyes, he was standing in the burned-out wreckage of a wooden building. For a moment, he thought, </span>
  <em>
    <span>Oh, no, Sammy—</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>But then he realized this couldn’t be the barn. The shape was all wrong, and there was a dirt parking lot outside instead of cornfields.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He spun around, and sure enough, there was Cas, real and solid and <em>alive again</em>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dean didn’t even think, just hurled himself forward and kissed him so hard their teeth clacked together with a cringe-inducing scraping sensation. Cas immediately kissed him back, fisting his hands in Dean’s jacket and tugging him forward to press their bodies even closer together.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dean didn’t know how long they stood there before the self-consciousness and need for air finally set in. They broke apart, gasping faintly, and Dean scanned his surroundings. There appeared to be nothing around for miles except for this strangely familiar ruin. After a moment of study, everything clicked into place, confirmed by a broken electrical sign half-buried under the rubble.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Roadhouse.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cas was looking around now, too, his face growing more and more puzzled, although he still hadn’t let go of Dean’s jacket. “Where… are we?” he asked bemusedly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dean laughed and pulled Cas into an embrace. “The future, if you want it,” he said. “How would you feel about running a bar?”</span>
</p>
<hr/><p>
  <span>The drive from northeastern Ohio to bumfuck nowhere, Nebraska was more than half a day even if you drove like a bat out of Hell and viewed sleep as a mere suggestion, which Dean knew that Sam would. It left him and Cas with no choice but to hitch a ride into Lincoln, where they managed to get a hot dinner and a motel room with the cash in Dean’s pockets.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The dinner was good. The room was better.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When Sam arrived early the next morning with Eileen in tow, he greeted Cas first with a quick glad-to-see-you’re-back-from-the-dead-for-like-the-sixth-time hug before turning to Dean. “I take it that asking Jack worked,” he observed, a bit too smugly for Dean’s taste.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, yeah, don’t look so pleased with yourself,” Dean retorted, but he was unable to keep the smile off his face as he did so.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sam laughed softly and smiled back. “I’m happy for you, Dean. I really am,” he said.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dean looked down, suddenly bashful. He murmured, “Thanks, Sam.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sam bumped him affectionately with his shoulder and jerked his chin in the direction of the motel room door. “Hey, look at that.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dean turned to find Cas and Eileen signing animatedly to each other in the doorway, too fast for him to make out what was being said. “Didn’t realize you two would have so much to say to each other,” he called out, signing the phrase rather more slowly and awkwardly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cas startled, looking a bit guilty. “We were just, uh…” he began.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We were making fun of you,” Eileen said and signed. “Comparing notes.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“<em>Notes?</em>” Sam echoed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You both kick the top sheet all the way down to the foot of the bed while you sleep,” Cas explained, “and then wake up because your feet get tangled.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dean and Sam traded slightly offended looks. “Okay, let’s get out of here before you two have time to compare any more <em>notes</em>,” Dean said, grabbing the Impala’s keys from Sam’s hand.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>As the four of them headed back to the car, Dean slowed down so he could walk beside Cas. “Since when do you know ASL, anyway?” Dean asked.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cas gave him a look like he thought the answer should be obvious. “I know all languages, Dean,” he said.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, but I didn’t know if that was one of the superpowers you lost when you became human.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Just ahead of them, Sam made a choking sound. “I’m sorry, did you just say Cas is <em>human?</em>” he demanded, turning on his heel to look at them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dean and Cas exchanged a bewildered glance. “Did we not mention that on the phone last night?” Dean asked.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No! All you said was that Cas was back and to come pick you up in Nebraska!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, get in the car and I’ll tell you while we drive,” Dean said. “It’s kind of a long story.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The car rocked as all four of them climbed in and slammed the doors. As they sped off into the dawn, Dean was struck by the sensation that, for the first time in maybe his entire life, he could breathe with absolute freedom. A warm golden bubble of happiness was working its way inexorably up his chest, loosening and lightening every muscle it touched. When he glanced in the rearview mirror, he caught Cas’ gaze, and the bubble burst, flooding Dean’s very being with light.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dean Winchester cracked a smile broad enough to split the heavens and drove on.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I truly can't believe that I wrote over 9000 words of Supernatural fanfiction in 2020. I can't believe I wrote over 9000 words of Supernatural fanfiction in <em>one weekend</em> in 2020. I can't believe it wouldn't have even taken me that long if I didn't have unavoidable responsibilities like an exam going on at the same time.</p><p>Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this! Like I said, I haven't seen the show in 7 years, so I don't know how well this actually works in terms of canon anymore (even the tiny amount of Jack and Eileen in here felt very risky since I have never seen a single episode with those characters), but I so badly needed a satisfying resolution for Dean and Cas that I decided to write this regardless. I'm astrailhads on Tumblr if you want to say hi over there! ETA: I also now have a Supernatural sideblog at fuckspn.tumblr.com. Go there if you want to see me rewatch this show and yell about Dean Winchester like I'm in high school again.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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